Sen. Larry Craig Interview

During an interview last evening with Larry Craig, Matt Lauer stated that the senator used hand & foot signals that are widely recognized among gay individuals as signals for bathroom sex. HUH??? I'm totally gay & I must admit that I have never heard of these signals before. Am I missing an important part of cruising for bathroom pick-ups. LOL. To which segment of the gay population is Matt Lauer referring?

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I'm happy to see another prominent Republican hypocrite outed but, in truth, the "crime" Craig plead guilty to sure doesn't seem like much of a crime. Just like it seemed stupid to spend tens of millions or dollars and waste years to prove Bill Clinton lied about a blow job.

You know, I think it may be an age thing. The heyday of bathroom cruising occurred in a time before the internet, Will & Grace, etc. In some cases, it might have been the only way for men to meet other, like-minded men. T-room, park, locker room, YMCA cruising was a significant part of gay culture before we became assimilated and started wanting to get married and have babies. Here's an interesting take:

I think now it's more like a dying language - Gay folk now have many, many social and sexual outlets so, unless it's about thrill-seeking and/or habit, there's probably no reason you'd know the signals. At 47, my first forays into gay sexuality were in the bathrooms of a local large department store - so you can imagine where my "imprint" is. You're 13 years younger than me and I bet your first experiences were probably a lot different.

Mr. Bear I think you are exactly correct. The younger guys really have no clue as to how tuff if was before ......just to meet someone, anyone, nuch less "date" like str8 people or have a relationship. Many of us older guys can relate to sex just being sex without being a slut. It was our outlet.
<tap> <tap> <tap> <slide over>mmmmmmmmmm

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During an interview last evening with Larry Craig, Matt Lauer stated that the senator used hand & foot signals that are widely recognized among gay individuals as signals for bathroom sex. HUH??? I'm totally gay & I must admit that I have never heard of these signals before. Am I missing an important part of cruising for bathroom pick-ups. LOL. To which segment of the gay population is Matt Lauer referring?

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You indirectly touching upon what I find very problematic about the media coverage. With all the focus on gay sex signals, the media is leaving the impression that gay sex is simply bathroom sex and fleeting sexual encounters.

Oddly enough, I am also inclined to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt about entrapment (even though I dislike his politics). An airport bathroom is so busy and transient an environment that I doubt most people have time to think about a random pick-up while visiting. (You are either waiting to depart or just getting off a plane and calculating how much time you have between exiting from the plane and picking up one's luggage at the baggage claim). If the Senator were really after sex, he could have more discretely and anonymously gone to a gay bar in the greater Washington DC area -- someplace relatively obscure. It would be away from his home in Minnesota.

I only hope that this incident sensitizes him to how gays have been stigmatized in society and makes him rethink some of his policies. His career is shot, but if he has any more political influence in the future, he will hopefully not join the popular bandwagon of throwing gays under the bus for political game through scapegoating and professing "family values".

Well if you heard the taped interview the vice cop gave Craig after he arrested him, you bump your foot against the other guy's foot, then run your hand under the edge of the toilet stall partition. It would seem kind of difficult to do accidentally. I've never come close to touching feet with anyone in an adjoining toilet stall. It would be an awkward move unless you were both trying to do it.

Thanks for all the great input. But... what about my question of the secret hand motions or foot tapping. What is all that about????

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Rodevon - Here is an excerpt of something I wrote for a yahoo group to which I belong which might put some context to the signaling. The gestures were never "secret" as you suggest. In fact, they were quite ordinary - kind of a biological Morse-code. I tap/U tap/I tap/U tap = Gay/Interested. I tap/u dont/I tap/u don't = Not Interested. What is VERY interesting is that the tap (at least before Larry Craig) means nothing to someone who isn't looking for it. It's just a guy shifting around next door - if he notices that much. And more interesting then that is the fact that were there no return tap, there would be no hand gesture.

All the folks who complain about cruising interfering with straight men or in some way harming kids have got it ALL wrong. It was quite invisible for a very long time, but much has conspired to change that in the last few decades. The point of it was to draw only the attention of a like-minded individual - not to call attention to oneself. The language of cruising is very much a product of a time before now when ordering a pizza or a fuckbuddy are equally easy from the comfort of one's living room.

Anyway - take a read. Hope it helps:

"Back in the days before "gay this and gay that", gay men communicated in what might be described as a secret code. With no bars, no "Will & Grace", no internet or computers, gay men often found one another in parks, public toilets, gyms, and Y's (an historical context for the place those locales hold in Gay sexual culture). Because those places were mixed-used facilities - straight and gay - these men had to communicate their interest in one another in a way that didn't get the attention of heterosexuals or bring on the attention of management (who, if you think about it, probably couldn't imagine such a thing going on anyway!).

An example might be a couple of guys sitting in a sauna. Guy A places a hand near or scratches his inner thigh. If Guy B is heterosexual, all he observes is a guy taking care of an itch. If Guy B is a homosexual circa 1959 say, that scratch along with a little eye contact or, BULLSEYE, a mirror movement would signal something completely different. Very subtle, yet quite direct if you knew what to look for.

Fast Forward to "Gay Lib" and further along to the era of HIV/AIDS and you see that the code has been broken. As the Gay community gained greater visibility to the dominant culture, some of its secrets and certainly its means of inter-tribal communication are no longer contained within the community. Think of this - around this country, especially in middling-sized cities - gay bathhouses often existed without the straight community really knowing about them or what went on inside of them. With the advent of AIDS and the discovery of its sexual transmission, even grandmas suddenly knew what was going on over in the warehouse district. The straight community has gained (and been given) an almost direct window into what had, up until then, been a relatively closed culture.

Back in my wilder days, I can recall being in a public restroom with two or three other guys, all in various stages of sexual involvement with each other. The door opens, we straighten up real quick, the straight guy (we figured) walks in, pees, and walks out none the wiser to what's been going on - he generally didn't know what to look for. Or, the guy walks in - a certain eye contact...a brief crotch rub...and the game is on again as he signals without speaking that he's one of the tribe.

All of this still happens to an extent. When you consider the historical/cultural context of gay men and public sex (which was actually invisible for a long time), it is not surprising that some gay men still carry a strong fascination with this particular expression of our sexuality..."
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I'm happy to see another prominent Republican hypocrite outed but, in truth, the "crime" Craig plead guilty to sure doesn't seem like much of a crime. Just like it seemed stupid to spend tens of millions or dollars and waste years to prove Bill Clinton lied about a blow job.

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It is pretty stupid, except for the hypocrisy angle. I don't recall Bill Clinton taking a political position against blow jobs and those who enjoy them.

The Senator, like so many others of us, seem to just be happy sitting in the closet staring at the stuff hanging there. He was caught and should have admitted it. The far right of which he believes he is a member of, would condemn him to the fires of Hell. That's why acting on our instincts remain locked in the closet, sometimes with the door cracked and forever fearful of being found out. The world could be a better place, a safer place, a freer place... but not this year, decade or perhaps century.

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I was so pissed about the interview.
I have never cruised in a bathroom and don't know about all these secret gay signals. All Matt's questions were about him being gay...and highlights all the gay sex in public bathroom identified on gay websites and these mysterious signals.

This is makes me so mad.

I don't understand why the Senator was arrested for tapping his foot and putting his hand under a partition...weird behavior in a airport rest room...but it wasn't like he showed his dick or touched some one else.
But I think he is lying about his intent and I felt so sorry for his delusional wife.

But I AM ANGRY....this interview put the gay movement back 10 years!?!?!?

Divine: He was arrested because of his participation in illicit behavior -- soliciting the sex in a public venue. Ironically enough, he could have discreetly and consensually arranged a get-together with another man in a private setting if that's what he wanted to do; never mind the difficulties wanting something like that and behaving as a public servant.

You're right. He didn't do something overt like flailing his dick around. Who would? (...other than a brazen exhibitionist, I would guess.) But that doesn't take away the fact that he (1) allegedly participated in this indiscreet behavior and (2) he pleaded guilty to the crime and wants to erase that from the record when it simply can't be done. I think he has to pay the appropriate legal consequences. It's unfortunate that political consequences follow from that; also, doubly sorry that the very ideology he believes in is the stuff that nails him to his proverbial cross, too.

I don't think Lauer intended to make a statement about sexual behavior conducted by homosexuals. He's just calling Craig to task on what he had done and asked for deeper motivation. Until he begins to recognize that his behavior has some bearing on what he's doing and faces his cognitive dissonance for voting anti-gay one way and participating in homosexual behavior elsewhere, he's just perpetuating a world of hurt.